If I was proud of the men, I was just as pleased with myself, or, I
should say, with my luck. Only two weeks before I had been read out to
the battalion at West Point, as one unfit to hold a commission, and
here I was riding at the head of my own troop. I was no second
lieutenant either, with a servitude of five years hanging over me
before I could receive my first bar, but a full-fledged captain, with
fifty men under him to care for and discipline and lead into battle.
There was not a man in my troop who was not at least a few years older
than myself, and as I rode in advance of them and heard the creak of
the saddles and the jingle of the picket-pins and water-bottles, or
turned and saw the long line stretching out behind me, I was as proud
as Napoleon returning in triumph to Paris. I had brought with me from
the Academy my scarlet sash, and wore it around my waist under my
sword-belt. I also had my regulation gauntlets, and a campaign
sombrero, and as I rode along I remembered the line about General
Stonewall Jackson, in "Barbara Frietchie,"

The leader glancing left and right.

I repeated it to myself, and scowled up at the trees and into the
jungle. It was a tremendous feeling to be a "leader."

At noon the heat was very great, and Laguerre halted the column at a
little village and ordered the men to eat their luncheon. I posted
pickets, appointed a detail to water the mules, and asked two of the
inhabitants for the use of their clay ovens. In the other troops each
man, or each group of men, were building separate fires and eating
alone or in messes of five or six but by detailing four of my men to
act as cooks for the whole troop, and six others to tend the fires in
the ovens, and six more to carry water for the coffee, all of my men